Thursday, October 14, 2010

I absolutely love the name of these guys, though their looks leave much to
be desired. Footballfish is the common name for members of the
Himantolophidae family, which has only one genus, Himantolophus, and
eighteen species. They are also members of the order Lophiiformes, which
is more commonly known as the Anglerfish order! I've covered other order
members in the past, but these Footballfish are more in line with what
comes to mind when one thinks of Anglerfish. They live in the deep sea,
they have large, round bodies with scary looking teeth, they sport
"fishing poles," and last but not least, they have some rather
interesting mating habits.

So lets break this down. Footballfish (and many other Anglerfish) live in the deep sea. In this
case, in tropical and subtropical waters around 3,300 ft. Footballfish
display extreme sexual dimorphism, with the females being much, much
larger than the males. This will come into play later. The females, with
their large, round forms, are slow swimmers, and actually hunt by
doing well, not much of anything at all. They have a rod known as an
ilicium that has a biioluminescent bulb attached to the end. Due to the
depth of water that they live in, the water is especially dark and this
bulb attracts prey. Females are then able to snatch their meals right in front of them. They feed mostly off of small fish and cephalopods.

Females are also quite good at attracting potential mates. Remember
those tiny male Footballfishes? Well, they never get very big, since
they don't typically have the ability to feed, but they are able to track
down females due to their great sense of smell and pheromones that the
females emit. Once a male finds a much larger lady, he latches on to her
with his mouth, and eventually his entire body dissolves into her,
leaving behind only gonads which the female is then able to use to
impregnate herself with. This comic sums it all up quite nicely (potentially NSW).

It should be noted that not all Footballfish species reproduce this way.
Some species have males that are free-living. The whole "attach and
dissolve" thing is also common in many other Anglerfish families.